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Toffa
NOT REAL Toffa is a British free-to-air television channel that is available in the United Kingdom and other European countries. It launched on 1 September 2003 and is known for being the only channel initially to have original programming only, which was the case until its’ version of the Indian game show '''Dadagiri '''aired in 2011 as '''Bullying '''and non-repeats until the 10th anniversary of the channel in 2013. History 2002-2003: Beginnings and pre-launch The creation of the channel went as far back as mid-2002 when best friends and telly-addicts Max Strapps and Eddie Lungs devised the idea of creating their own television channel from scratch. Initial plans were for the name to be TV Heaven; the idea being that it would be a channel free from repeats and imports, solely focusing on original-made content. Strapps and Lungs saved up as much as possible to plan the channel ahead for at least the next year. Because they weren't expecting it to be a big deal, they planned it to begin only on Sky Digital, and placed it towards the end of the entertainment channels, specifically channel 195. Furthermore, to give time for creating the channel and programming, the channel would only air for six hours daily from 3pm to 9pm. By March 2003, the channel was greenlit with further changes made. Strapps and Lungs feared that the TV Heaven name would be an easy target for critics to parody, so they created a name from an acronym to develop the personality of their channel. They turned it from 'Turn On For Fun Always' into the name Toffa instead of it being displayed as T.O.F.F.A. They both intended to trick audiences into thinking that the name Toffa was something fancy that they came up with themselves, although they eventually revealed the truth in 2018 as part of the channel's 15th anniversary. Also at that point, programming was in developments. The two main ones would become 'The Microsoft Sam Show' and 'Basic Tutorials' starting out respectively as an animated drawing of a character with a computerized voice and a simplified take on DIY items and other everyday objects. The two had by then took jobs to raise the cost to set the channel up in previous months and from April 2003, they had £5.1 million altogether which was just about enough to both begin the process of launching and developing further programming. Promotional material for the channel began in July 2003 and continued up until launch day, most commonly on television, radio and on billboards. Because promotions would be costly, it was decided to allow Hat Trick Productions to do the promotions for them in order to save money. On average in the run-up to launch, the channel was promoted on most channels at least twice a day. 1st September 2003: Launch day Toffa went to air on Sky Digital at 2:00pm with a holding slide saying 'Toffa begins today at 3:00pm' which appeared for an hour until launch moment. The channel began with a short 90-second launch programme titled: 'Toffa Is Here!' simply devoted to questions and answers about it. This was followed by the first voice of the channel, lead continuity announcer Peter Miller, who would often be known as Peter Fofta occasionally and even declare that name from time to time. The first proper programme to air was The Microsoft Sam Show and Microsoft Sam himself would commonly be referred to as the first face of the channel despite being non-human. Unusually, it was decided for it to be the first programme to air when the episode was in fact a pilot, with the actual series beginning in its usual timeslot of Saturday at 5:45pm. The episode just featured Microsoft Sam welcoming Toffa viewers and wishing everyone working for the company the best of luck. The first advert to air was for Halifax featuring a 3D animated Howard Brown, whilst the following advert for esure featured the first human face to appear on Toffa: Michael Winner. The following adverts were then for Asda and Confused.com, completing the first set of adverts to air on Toffa. Basic Tutorials was the next programme to air (unlike Microsoft Sam this was the first proper episode) with a tutorial on how to make a welcome home banner. The twist was that instead of showing how to create one alone, it showed how you could buy one and make adjustments. Other programmes that aired on launch day that remained included: 'Useful and Useless' which ran until 2005, 'Decorators' which ran until 2010 and 'Entertainment Quickies' which ran until 2008. 2003-2007 Within weeks, Toffa's ratings peaked at an average of 100,000 daily, largely due to the amount of original content included, unlike most other digital channels. It did result in critics praising the content but panning the visual style of Toffa, describing it as 'A five-year-old's dream coming to life' and 'The leftover lunch channel that's actually good.' In November, Strapps and Lungs suggested extending the hours; even risking the idea of doing a breakfast television service as they felt it had become bare since the axing of 'The Big Breakfast' in March 2002. They also agreed to expand the hours in the evenings as well, meaning that the channel would now air from 7-12am on weekdays and 9-12am on weekends. Part of the reason for the later start time was because the channel needs 'a lie down on the weekends like everyone else.' Unfortunately, the extended broadcast hours resulted in some minor budget cuts to help costs and for the channel to play safe for the time being. Furthermore, it was suggested to expand to other non-television viewers by launching a website. These would come into place from Monday 5 January 2004. From then on weekdays, the channel began with breakfast show Toffa:AM, running from 7-9am presented by Nick Farley and Ellie Perkins from Maverick Television Studios in Birmingham (and would continue to do so until the end of 2017). Following that would be a six-hour filler programme encouraging viewers to get in touch about almost anything Toffa related. Following this, the regular schedule which had changed little from launch followed with other new programmes taking up the last three hours of the broadcast day. For the weekends, a three hour morning entertainment show titled 'Wacky Weekends' aired from 9am-12pm again followed by a three-hour version of filler as shown on weekdays. The main Saturday schedule began with The Microsoft Sam Show as normal, followed by 'Evening Strikes' a thirty-minute live programme that shared the same studio as Toffa:AM focusing on the latest announcements from the channel on various programmes and people. Afterwards is 'Caught On Camera Calamities' known for many as being a cheap version of home-video programmes such as 'You've Been Framed!' which in turn is the UK's main equivalent of the main American programme, 'America's Funniest Home Videos'. The difference was that it had no studio links or presenter/narrator and instead focused on the home videos themselves. This set-up would partly inspire You've Been Framed! taking on a similar format later in the year when the studio links were gone, to be replaced with Harry Hill as the voiceover and emphasis on graphics. The rest of 2004 was also seen to be fairly successful for the channel. Ratings averaged at 300,000 considering Sky Digital viewers which is significantly high and especially with it being a non-terrestrial channel. Following the popularity of Microsoft Sam in September 2004, it was decided that he should introduce the show himself which later became permanent due to the popular decision made, still to this day. In 2005, Toffa wanted to expand on their style of programming by having a go at drama. They were given an outline for a programme by Tony Hoppings and Kevin Young which featured a sci-fi alien invasion originally titled: Zapnapped. The title was later changed to the more familiar title of Timebomb along with further plot developments. This was claimed to be done following the BBC's announcement of reviving Doctor Who which aired during the spring and Timebomb aired within the last three episodes of the first series, occasionally clashing with the show at some times. At first, Toffa bravely risked doing it alone, however, Eddie Lungs still decided to play it safe by doing a co-production with the show to save money. When production began in March 2005, Toffa had a deal with Tiger Aspect Productions to provide funding and budgets for the show to prevent the criticism for the visual effects, in the same way the original run of Doctor Who from 1963-89 was often mocked at because of them. Timebomb would be Tiger Aspect's first drama programme they worked on as was Toffa's and the former wouldn't produce the genre of programming until the following year for the BBC's Robin Hood. Also that year, Microsoft Sam temporarily rested before Easter after it was announced it would do a one-off talk show series in the style largely of Trisha (which was ITV's flagship talk show at the time). It would air at 5:45pm still for the same running time but on weekdays for six weeks giving the series a 30 episode run. The series received mixed reviews. Main positives included Sam trying out new things which for once worked well, and the criticism being the unsuitable choice of format. Understandably, this was a one-off series and Toffa announced six days after the last episode that the show would go back to its normal format from September. For 2006, Strapps and Lungs had some thoughts about the internet. Toffa had a website and it's part of the internet. Almost immediately, the concept of an internet-based magazine show was developed as Internet Interests. The show went to air in May that year, often looking at the more popular websites from the UK and around the world. It also featured links from a presenter via an internet cafe and aired on Sundays from 10:30am. 2007-2011 In late 2006, Toffa upgraded their graphics package collection that they owned, allowing further ranges to be used as well as the opportunity to broadcast in widescreen. They would eventually do so from Monday 21 January 2007 which came along with six new idents (using ABC America's 1998 jingles) and modified presentation. An array of new programming was also included, though several programmes began airing later than normal in order to receive the new widescreen cameras. Most programmes were also affected by the rebrand, in which the Toffa logo appeared in their titles for five seconds. The only exceptions were Toffa:AM and Basic Tutorials, the former due to it being odd to see the Toffa logo twice in the titles and Basic Tutorials for having a short title sequence with a black background; making it redundant for half a logo to appear. One of the breakthrough programmes that began in 2007 was Austin Ward's Mid-Week Sandwich, which aired twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30pm, having been noted that those days are often the quietest and least exciting of the week. The show itself wouldn't really be related and instead would act as a generic comedy-fronted programme. 11-year-old American Toffa-enthusiast Austin Ward fronted the show after frequently poking at suggestions of different programmes for the channel via email. None of the shows came into fruition, though Eddie Lungs claimed that his enthusiasm persuaded him to combine some elements into Austin's show.